


in another life (you and i)

by isozyme



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Civil War, M/M, Nobody has a good time!, Not A Fix-It, Sad Handies, Steve is a murderer!, Tony is suicidal!, We are never ever getting back together, director of shield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:33:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21548413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isozyme/pseuds/isozyme
Summary: It’s a man, half-clad in silver armor. His face is covered by an angular mask, eyes glowing blue slits. The suit is a sick frankenstein of Captain America and Iron Man. Tony raises his palms, readying a repulsor blast.The man opposite him raises a red-gloved hand which, like a terrible mirror, bears an identical repulsor.The Civil Warrior makes it to Earth-616 six months too late.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 112





	in another life (you and i)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kiyaar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyaar/gifts).



> A quick and dirty one-day one-shot inspired by Kiyaar’s good angst and this comic by magicasen and hellogarbagetime.
> 
> You have two soundtrack options:  
> In Another Life - Vienna Teng or We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - Taylor Swift

It’s been one hundred and eighty two days since the courthouse steps. Tony has watched the footage of Steve’s death twelve hundred times. The grief isn’t a void: it’s a thick cloud of choking gas. Just when he thinks it’s dissipated the wind shifts and the pain is back, bubbling in his lungs, blistering his skin, crystalizing in his eyes.

There’s a chemical -- silicon tetrachloride, he knows the names of everything -- that mixes with water to make glass. It can blind you by turning your tears into sand. Tony wishes his eyes were lenses of clear quartz, sharp-edged caps to hold the sorrow in. He’s so tired of things slipping free of him without permission. People notice. Their sympathy is like a hand around his throat.

Worse is their unspoken fear: what if Tony Stark is broken by this forever?

Tony knows he’s a paranoid wreck. He’s checked the server room for security breaches four times tonight. Every time he makes it to the hanger bay terror seizes him. He needs to look again in case there’s something he’s missed. What if he didn’t check at all tonight? What if his mind is playing tricks on him and he _hasn’t_ looked, he’s remembering the previous day’s security sweep and pasting it onto today? He can _feel_ someone there. He has to be sure, he has to, he can’t go home yet.

The security on the SHIELD server banks is so high Tony can’t get into it remotely. Two-factor identification requires a physical as well as a digital component, and he didn’t dare leave himself a personal exploit.

Tony stands in the hangar bay and tries to tell the suit to drop him into the sky. He can go home. He’s so tired that his vision dances with static.

Panic locks his joints. He can’t, he can’t, something terrible is going to happen and it’s his job to keep everyone safe. He has to keep everyone safe. It’s all up to him.

Tony goes back to look again. One more time. The average is up from three checks a night to five.

* * *

_Steve hears someone behind him and whips around, shield up, the glowing repulsor at its center whining into life. It throws hard shadows across the room and washes out the small blinking LEDs on the server racks._

_Gleaming red armor bounces the repulsor’s light back at Steve, reflections splintering into blue-white stars._

_No._

* * *

Someone is here.

They’re bent over the console, a dim amorphous shape backlit by the screen. Their back is oddly rounded, hunched into a smooth curve.

In an instant, they spin to face Tony. The curve over their back resolves into a familiar round shield as they unhook it from its harness and swing it forward.

For a moment, Tony’s relieved. It’s just Bucky, doing his usual black ops spy shit instead of going through normal channels because old habits die hard. Tony understands how that is.

But then the center of the shield flashes with blinding light, and the figure turns horrifying and unfamiliar.

It’s a man, half-clad in silver armor. His face is covered by an angular mask, eyes glowing blue slits. The suit is a sick frankenstein of Captain America and Iron Man. Tony raises his palms, readying a repulsor blast.

The man opposite him raises a red-gloved hand which, like a terrible mirror, bears an identical repulsor.

“Who are you, and what did you do to Bucky to get that shield?” Tony demands.

There’s a laugh like dead air. “You gave my shield to a dead man?”

“How _fucking_ dare -- “

The man’s faceplate shimmers clear. Tony developed a transparent armor mode to create the illusion of trust where none existed.

It’s Steve.

_Oh God._

Steve, _alive,_ Steve --

But as soon as Tony thinks that his traitor brain starts cataloging differences. This man’s hair is paler, his brows and eyelashes almost white against his skin, and his nose has been broken and poorly set in a way that looks old -- nobody with access to modern medicine would let Captain America’s nose heal crooked.

It’s not his Cap.

_How dare you think of him as yours,_ Tony thinks bitterly. _After what you did to him he’s_ _anything_ _but your Cap._

“It’s too late,” says someone else’s Steve. “This universe already had our war.”

_Our_ not as in humanity. _Our_ as in Captain America and Iron Man. Steve and Tony’s war.

“It all went wrong,” Tony whispers. He has to apologize. It isn’t as good, to this unholy twin, but any scrap of atonement is worth it.

Steve shudders and shakes his head. “I’m going. There’s nothing I can do here.”

Extremis crawls over Steve’s stolen armor, picking at scraps of information. Origin: Earth-TRN634. Code name: Civil Warrior. Traces of multiverse travel. Evidence of multiple inexpert repairs, many from repulsor burnout from too many discharges at deadly levels.

He’s a killer. Even without the data Extremis is dumping into his head, Tony would be able to tell from the hardness in his face.

And Tony is still agonizingly, inescapably gone for him.

“Wait,” Tony begs. Steve has to know: “I loved him.”

Metal squeals against metal; a thin, tortured sound. Tony reflexively checks all his metrics for an armor failure, but it’s not him. Steve has barely moved, but somewhere in the internal structure of his gunmetal armor pieces are grinding together.

“That’s cruel, Tony,” Steve says. “You’re not cruel, that’s not who you are. Don’t stoop to this.”

There’s a hint of the old inspiring Cap in the words and tone, the man who inspired Tony to be the best version of himself. Underneath the calcification of death and violence is the same man Tony loved -- loves, goddamnit, who is he kidding, he’s never going to be free of this.

They had been golden, once.

“It’s true,” Tony says. “Please, I swear. I swear on my lying heart, for all the things I’ve done -- I did. I do.”

“Don’t tell me what I want to hear!” Steve shouts. The faceplate slams opaque again and Tony is left staring into a metal skull instead of Steve’s too-light eyes.

“It’s not what you want to hear. It can’t be,” Tony says, lost. Despair makes his gorge rise. How could Steve want to hear that, after all the things Tony had done? Steve had raged at him from inside a cell and the next day Tony had let him die. Nobody _wants_ to be loved by Tony. It’s a dead man’s gambit.

Tony drops the armor. It flies away from him and sets itself down on the floor silently, the world’s gentlest explosion. He doesn’t care if Steve finishes it. Fair’s fair. This is how it should happen: the end of Tony Stark.

He drops his hands and turns his face to the side. _Do it. I fold._

“Not again,” Steve says, suddenly quiet and shaky. “I can’t do this again.”

This Steve has killed him before.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Tony says. “You’ve done it. All those other universes you visit, a dozen times: this is how you stop the war. What’s one more time?”

“Only once,” Steve says roughly. “It'll never be more than once.”

“How else do you make it end?” Tony asks.

Steve doesn’t answer. When Tony looks back at him he’s as still as if he were cast from bronze.

“How else?” Tony demands.

Steve takes off the helmet, for real this time, dropping the shield to the ground and cradling the helm between his hands. His hair sticks up on the sides, mussed by the shock-absorbing pads that protect the wearer’s ears. It’s incongruous -- almost adorable. 

Then he says, “If I die, you stop.”

The man in front of Tony built himself to take Steve out, Captain America and Iron Man in one person, stronger than either of them alone. Together, Tony and Steve could win. Apart, they’d lose. Everywhere the Civil Warrior visits, Steve dies to end the war.

“You monster,” Tony gasps. “You do this to me? Over and over, you make me live _this?_ ”

“You’re not supposed to care!”

“Tough,” Tony says, choking on grief again, needles of it filling his throat. “I do.”

* * *

_I loved him._

_Tony’s armor picks itself up off the floor and follows him as he walks away like the pied piper of tech._

_“Did you stop loving him?” Steve calls, helpless to hold himself back. Asking will make it hurt more, but he can’t help it. This Tony’s history fits into Steve’s like hand in glove, all the same pain cored out, reversed, and laid into a metal shell._

_“Of course not,” Tony spits. “Killing you didn’t fix_ _shit_ _. It just made you dead.”_

* * *

Tony expects to hear the snapping crackle of multiverse travel initiating behind him. It doesn’t matter. He’s leaving too. He won’t get stuck worrying in the hangar bay because the break-in has already happened. It would be locking the barn door after the horse, at this point. He can go home, if he even has a home anymore.

Instead there’s quiet, followed by a low hum and the clang of shield striking magnetized gauntlet.

As Tony opens the door to the positive-pressure air lock, he feels a bare hand encircle his wrist.

Steve’s grip is familiar. Steve has grabbed Tony and hauled him out of danger more times than Tony can count. His hands are strong and broad. Steve’s grip doesn’t bite into the flesh; he doesn’t squeeze, even if he’s hanging on for dear life. His fingers form a gentle, immovable cuff, and nothing can shake him off.

Tony used to imagine the touch lingered slightly longer than safety required. He used to count how many times Steve’s thumb dragged lightly over the soft skin at the inside of his wrist.

It was nothing. It has to have been nothing, because otherwise Tony will shake apart.

Steve crowds him through the door until they’re pressed up against each other in the space in between the two doors.

_Please make sure other door is closed before opening,_ says a sign at Tony’s eye level.

Then Steve has his other hand around the back of Tony’s neck, and he’s being pulled into a desperate kiss.

Tony lets him in like a man dying of thirst allows himself a single sip of his last cup of water. The more he takes of this, the more it will hurt. But it’s sweet as wine, he needs to keep _touching_ Steve, Steve alive, Steve who wants him so badly his teeth click against Tony’s with a ravenous desire for closeness. No staid, rational argument can win over the shape of Steve’s lips against Tony. He feels like all the grief and love he has for Steve is bunched up on his tongue, ready to spill out of his mouth. The soft animal of his heart isn’t taking orders from his brain anymore.

Tony knows he’s an addict at heart. Every time he’ll choose the short term reward and condemn his future self to a world of long-term pain.

He gives in, meets devouring want with devouring want. He stumbles back until he hits the wall and Steve follows, heavy hand still pulling Tony toward him, kiss unbroken. They’re chest-to-chest. Tony can feel Steve’s ribs rise and fall against his own; he’s flush with Steve from hip to shoulder.

Steve’s open-mouthed and messy, crushing too close for skill. He sobs when Tony digs his fingernails into the buzzed hair of Steve’s nape and drags with both hands, equally frantic.

He’s given in; now Tony’s going to take everything he can get and hope it was worth it.

Tony opens his knees to allow Steve’s thigh to slot between his thighs. Steve’s armor doesn’t extend down to his legs; the uniform there is kevlar mesh. Tony can feel Steve’s thigh muscles through it, and he’s sure Steve can easily feel that Tony’s hard.

Tony can pinpoint the moment Steve thinks _hell with it_ and decides to cross this line too. 

Steve’s mouth lifts a fraction, and his forehead rolls heavily against Tony’s as he tips his head down to watch as he grinds forward against Tony’s crotch, purposefully this time. His nose presses into Tony’s cheek, his breath washing juddery and warm over Tony’s lips.

Then he spits into his palm and pushes a hand into the front of Tony’s pants. He jerks Tony’s dick, too dry and too fast, but Tony still whines in his throat, hooking his fingers around the hard edges of Steve’s stolen armor, begging for more.

If Tony closes his eyes, the subtle differences melt away and it’s his Steve. If Steve doesn’t talk, he can’t hear the accent inflected by Brooklyn instead of the Lower East Side.

Steve wets his palm again and wraps his hand around Tony, slicker and tighter, until Tony gasps against Steve’s mouth and comes in his pants. He doesn’t say any of the things he needs to.

Tony hangs onto Steve’s shoulders as Steve unfastens the front of his suit and jerks off hurriedly against Tony’s hip.

Steve shakes when he comes, gulping back whatever words he has that he can’t say.

* * *

_Tony’s goatee is cut slightly narrower than it should be. He has more lines around his eyes and fewer burn scars on his fingers._

_Steve focuses on the differences as hard as he can, and still it’s Tony._

_He’s trying to come up with a motivation for Tony to say I love you and have it be a lie. The tactics won’t come together. _

_Steve wishes that this once, the truth didn’t hurt worse than the betrayal._

* * *

“Do you think he went to heaven?” Tony asks into Steve’s neck. Steve makes a broken noise, but Tony has to know. He has to know if Steve thinks he could ever be forgiven.

They’ve barely got their breath back. They haven’t peeled apart and decided what happens next yet.

“Do you think I did?” Steve asks instead of answering.

“I don’t believe in God,” Tony says.

“I do.”

It’s not news to Tony that Steve is religious. He watched every Sunday as Steve dressed up nice and walked to service. Steve wasn’t the type of man who sat in a pew and let himself listen to easy lies.

“I know you’re up there,” Steve says eventually. “But that’s a lot of universes away.”

“Stay,” Tony pleads. “I’ll tell you everything. No more secrets, no more wars.”

Steve’s throat works under Tony’s slack mouth as he swallows.

“No.”

Tony is unsurprised. One grief-filled moment of connection isn’t worth ditching the mission. Not in Steve’s eyes. They couldn’t be happy together, anyway. They’ve each done too much to the other. It would never be good, or easy. They’ve missed the window. This is what he gets, now: a broken nomad and an anvil of guilt.

If Steve won’t stay, there’s only one other option.

Tony calls a repulsor gauntlet to his hand and presses the cold circle of glass just in front of Steve’s ear.

“I can’t let you go kill him over and over,” Tony whispers.

_I told myself never again_ , Tony thinks, and considers moving the gauntlet six inches to the side and taking his own head off. _I swore I would learn from his death, I fucking swore to change!_

“Put it down, Tony,” Steve says. “Drop it. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“Would you snap my neck if I tried?” Tony asks. Steve could. It would be easy for him, like popping the seal on a stubborn jar.

Steve shakes his head.

“We could have got it right,” Tony says quietly. “I’ve seen universes where we listened to each other and none of it happens. It would have been so easy to get it right.”

Steve kisses his hairline, and says nothing. Tony’s hand trembles against Steve’s temple.

“At least promise me. Promise you’ll make us talk first,” Tony begs.

“Put it down,” Steve repeats.

Sitting next to Steve’s body, staring at his own blood streaked across red and white stripes, Tony had known if he had a second chance, he would have have let Project Wideawake happen. If it saved Steve, Tony would let every principle he’d ever held break under the weight of selfish love.

Tony lets the gauntlet bounce to the floor, beaten. It had been a half-hearted threat at best.

Steve touches his face with killer’s fingers, and fades out of the universe.

* * *

  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] in another life (you and i)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22101295) by [The_Casual_Sounds (the_casual_cheesecake)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_casual_cheesecake/pseuds/The_Casual_Sounds)
  * [[podfic] in another life (you and i)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22149313) by [AudioSilks (WhenasInSilks)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenasInSilks/pseuds/AudioSilks)




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